


They Never Go Away

by thewightknight



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: F/M, ghosts are real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 14:44:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15488169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewightknight/pseuds/thewightknight
Summary: Little Enola has an imaginary friend.





	They Never Go Away

Alan waited. Waited through the mourning period, and a year past that and longer even still. Waited until the rumors died and the scandal faded. Until one evening, when candles flickered around the dance floor and they both ignored the strains of the waltz.

She said yes, of course. Yes to the question that fell from his lips, that would have come years previously, if a certain gentleman hadn’t swept into their lives. Little Enola had just had her second birthday when he posed his question. Her fourth was approaching when her mother finally walked towards him down the aisle.

Enola had always been a quiet child, reserved and solemn. She was late to speak, and content to sit for hours on end playing with her dolls, babbling nonsense at them.

It was Eunice that pointed it out to him at first. His sister had made a fine match. Not as fine as a baronet, perhaps, but also not as dangerous to her health. They’d taken a stroll together, shortly before her confinement would begin. Enola walked a few paces ahead of them, hand clasped with her governess.

“Do you ever get the feeling that she is talking to someone?”

“Talking? No. It’s just nonsense syllables.” As if sensing they were talking about her, Enola looked back, waving happily at them before turning her attention back to the butterflies that fluttered all around them.

“But that’s all she uses still, yes?”

“No, she has her words. She just uses them sparingly.”

She did string together full sentences, sometimes in a frighteningly lucid fashion for a child of her age. In the last few months she had been more vocal, more engaged. But when she was in her nursery she still took refuge in her secret language, understood only by herself and her dolls.

Eunice’s observations stayed with him, though, and he watched her perhaps a bit more carefully than had been his wont, the next time she was at play. It was because of this that he noticed what had escaped him in the past, the fact that Enola seemed to address the air beside her instead of the dolls in front of her.

He thought about it that night, when she came to him for her goodnight kiss. Thought that he might have imagined it. But the next day, and the next, she still did the same. He thought, then instantly discarded the idea of discussing it with Edith. Although he knew she loved her daughter dearly, it still pained her to remember, and he didn’t want to do anything that might bring more worry to her. She had nearly lost Enola during and more than once, between the poison and the shock. The birth had been hard as well, and the babe’s first few months equally uncertain. Any whisper, any intimation that her past situation might still impact her daughter would cause Edith distress, and that he would not allow.

So instead he watched, and waited, and bided his time.

One day he sat himself down to tea with her and her dolls. She handed him a cup, from which he pretended to drink, and a plate, from which he pretended to eat. She set another place between herself and Rosalind, of the blond curls and porcelain skin and painted cerulean eyes. 

“And who is this for, my sweet?” he asked.

“My angel,” she replied.

“You have an angel?” 

“Yes, papa. He watches over me.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“So nothing bad happens to me like it did to mama.”

The miniature teacup rattled on its saucer when Alan set it down. He tried to speak but his throat refused to give him breath to form words. Enola continued on, oblivious to his reaction.

“Would you like some more tea, papa?”

Nodding, he held his cup out. His hand did not tremble, he was pleased to see. They went through the routine. Cream, one imaginary lump of sugar, pour, and stir. Wishing for a cup of real tea, with perhaps a splash of something fortifying, he stared at the space to his daughter’s left. No hint of any apparition hovered next to the table. What would he see, though, if were able to capture the scene in a photograph?

Finally, he found his voice, asking the question he dreaded to ask, fearing he already knew the answer.

“Sweetling, does your angel have a name?”

“Yes, papa. His name is Thomas.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you want to say hi, [check out my profile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewightknight/profile) for where I’m currently hanging out on this here internet thing.


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